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THE 



NATIONAL BUREAU OF EDUCATION 



ITS HISTORY, WORK, AND LIMITATIONS. 

^' —i— iJliiiil;^—— — ^— — »— — — n ail I I II ,1, 



PREPARED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE COMMISSIONER 
OF EDUCATION, 

HY 

Al.EX. SHIRAS, D. D. 






18 Vo^^. 



WASHlISraTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 
1875. 



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THE NATIONAL BUREAU OF EDUCATION. 



The Bureau of Education, an Office in the Department of the 
Interior, publishes the following statement of its origin, pur- 
poses, practical working, and publications, the numerous in- 
quiries addressed to it on these points making it expedient to 
have some such method of answering correspondents. 

I. — AS TO ITS HISTORY. 

This Office had its rise in the need long felt by leading edu- 
cators of some central agencj' by which the general educational 
statistics of the country could be collected, preserved, condensed, 
and properly arranged for distribution. The sense of this need 
found expression finally in the action taken at a convention 
of the superintendence-department of the National Educational 
Association, held at Washington, February, 1866, when it was 
resolved to memoralize Congress in favor of a National Bureau 
of Education. The following memorial was accordingly pre- 
pared, containing substantially the arguments for the estab- 
lishment of such an Office by the Government, which had been 
submitted to the convention in a paper by Hon. E. E. White, 
of Ohio : 

MEMORIAI.. 

Memorial to the lionordble the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 

States : 

At a meetiug of the National Association of State and City Scliool-Sui^er- 
intendents, recently held in the city of Washington, D. C, the undersigned 
were appointed a committee to memorialize Congress for the estahlishmeut 
of a National Bureau of Education. 

It was the unanimous opinion of the association that the interests of 
education would he greatly x3romoted hy the organization of such a Bureau 
at the present time ; that it would render needed assisl^auce in the establish- 
ment of school-systems where they do not now exist, and that it would also 
prove a potent means for imxiroTing and vitalizing existing systems. This it 
could accomplish : 

1. By securing greater uniformity and accuracy in school-statistics, and so 
interpreting them that they may he more widely available and reliable as 
educational tests and measures. 

2. By bringing together the results of school-systems in different com- 
munities, States, and countries, and determining their comparative value. 

3. By collecting the results of all important experiments in new and 
special methods of school-instruction and management, and making them 
the common property of school- officers and teachers throughout the country. 

4. By diffusing among the people information respecting the school-laws 



of the different States; the varioUvS inocles of providing and disbursing 
school-funds ; the different classes of school-officers and their relative duties ; 
the qualifications required of teachers., the modes of their examination, and 
the ageucies provided for their special training ; the best methods of classify- 
and grading schools, improved plans of school-houses, together with modes 
of heating and ventilation, &c. — information now obtained only by a few- 
persons and at great expense, but which is of the highest value to all in- 
trusted with the management of schools. 

5. By aiding communities and States in the organization of school-systems 
in which mischievous errors shall be avoided and vital agencies and well- 
tried improvements be included. 

6. By the general diffusion of correct ideas respecting the value of educa- 
tion as a quickener of intellectual activities, as a moral renovator, as a mul- 
tiplier of industry and a consequent producer of wealth, and, finaDy, as the 
strength and shield of civil liberty. 

In the opinion of your memorialists, it is not possible to measure the influ- 
ence which the faiihful performance of these duties by a National Bureau 
would exert upon the cause of education throughout the country, and few 
per.-ons who have not been intrusted with the management of school-systems 
can fully realize how wide-spread and urgent is the demand for such assist- 
ance. Indeed, the very existence of the association which your memorialists 
represent is itself positive proof of a demand for a national channel of com- 
munication between the school-officers of the different States. Millions of 
dollars have been thrown away in fruitless experiments, or in stolid plod- 
ding, for the want of it. 

Your memorialists would also submit that the assistance and encourage- 
ment of the General Government are needed to secure the adoption of school- 
systems throughout the country. An ignorant people have no inward im- 
pulse to lead them to self-education. Just where education is most needed, 
there it is always least appreciated and valued. It is, indeed, a law of edu- 
cational progress that its impulse and stimulus come from without. Hence 
it is that Adam Smith and other writers on political economy expressly ex- 
cept education from the operation of the general law of supply and demand. 
They teach, correctly, that the demand for education must be awakened by 
external influence and ageucies. 

This law is illustrated by the fact that entire school-systems, both in this 
and in other countries, have been lifted up, as it were bodily, by just such 
influences as a National Bureau of Education would exert u]3on the schools 
of the several States ; and this, too, without its being invested with any 
official control of the school-authorities therein. Indeed, the highest value 
of such a Bureau would be its quickening and informing influence, rather 
than its authoritative and directive control. The true function of such a 
Bureau is not to direct officially in the school-affairs in the States, but riither 
to co-operate with and assist them in the great work of establishing and 
maintaining systems of public instruction. All experience teaches that the 
nearer the responsibility of supporting autttlirecting schools is bi'ought to 
those immediately benefited by them, the greater their vital power and 
efficiency. 

Your memorialists beg permission to suggest one other special duty which, 
should be intrusted to the National Bureau, and which of itself will justify 
its creation, viz : an investigation of the management and results of the fre- 
quent munificent grants of land made by Congress for the promotion of gen- 
eral and special education. It is estimated that these grants, if they had 
been properly managed, would now present an aggregate educational fund 
of about live hundred millions of dollars. If your memorialists are not mis- 
informed. Congress has no official information whatever respecting the man- 
ner in which these trusts have been managed. 

In conclusion, your memorialists beg leave to express their earnest belief 
that universal education, next to universal liberty, is a matier of deep na- 
tional concern. Our experiment of republican institutions is not ui)on the 
scale of a petty municipality or state, but it covers half a continent and em- 
braces peoples of widely diverse interests and conditions, but who are to con- 
tinue '' one and inseparable." Every condition of our perpetuity and prog- 
ress as a nation adds emphasis to the remark of Montesquieu, that " it is in 
a republican government that the tvliole jpoiver of education is required." 



It is an imperative necessity of the American Eepublic that the common 
school be planted on every square mile of its peopled territory and that the 
instruction therein imparted he carried to the highest point of efficiency. The 
creation of a Bureau of Education by Congrtss would be a i^ractical recogni- 
tion of this great truth. It would impart to the cause of education a dignity 
and imx^ortance which would surely widen its influence and enhance its suc- 
cess. 
All of which is respectfully submitted. 

E. E. WHITE, 
Slate-Commissioner of Common Sclwols of Ohio. 
NEWTOX BATEMAX, 
State-Superintendent of Public Instruction, Illinois. 

J. S. ADAMS, 
Secretary of State-Board of Education, Vermont. 

Washington, D. C, February 10, 1866. 

The above memorial was presented in the House of Eep- 
resentatives by General Garfield, Februarj^ 14, 1866, with a bill 
for the establishment of a National Bureau on esseutially the 
basis the school-superintendents had proposed. Memorial and 
bill were both referred to a committee from seven of the States.* 
On the 15th of June following the bill was reported back from 
the committee, with an amendment in the nature of a substi- 
tute, providing for the creation of a depariment of education, 
instead of the bureau originally proposed. Thus altered, it was 
put upon its passage, and, after some frank opposition on one 
side and very able advocacy on the other, it received, June 19, 
80 votes in favor to 41 against it. In the Senate it was 
referred to the Oomiiiittee on the Judiciary,f with a view 
to determining whether there were any legal or constitutional 
obstacles to the approval of it. This committee, after holding 
it till the winter-session, reported it back without amendment 
and with a recommendation that it pass ; and, haviog been 
discussed, February 26, 1867, on a motion to restore the title of 
Bureau, it went through, without division, on the 1st of March, 
receiving on the next day the approval of the President. 

The person selected as the first incumbent of the office of 
Commissioner of Education was Hon. Henry Barnard, LL. D., of 
Connecticut, distinguished for his labors on behalf of education 
in his native State, for five years commissioner of public schools 
in Rhode Island, for some time chancellor of the University of 
Wisconsin, and also eminent for his efforts in behalf of educa- 

* The committee of Representatives consisted of Messrs. Garfield of Ohio, 
Patterson of Xew Hampshire, Boutwell of Massachusetts, Donnelly of Min- 
nesota, Moulton of Illinois, Goodyear of New York, and Eandall of Penn- 
sylvania, Mr. Randall, however, not acting with the others, as he observed 
on the floor of the House. 

t Messrs. Trumbull, Harris, Clark, Poland, Stewart, and Hendricks. 



tional literature. He was nominated for the post by President 
Johnson, March 11, 1867, and confirmed by the Senate March 16. 
Holding the office for three years, he had the task, at once hon- 
orable and arduous, of starting a scheme of operation and of 
getting "the yet rough wheels of the organized machine at work. 
As he failed to receive the congressional co-operation that was 
hoped for, the National Superintendents' Association came to 
his aid, and, in a meeting held at Trenton, I:^. J., August, 1869, 
passed, unanimously, the following preamble and resolutions: 

Whereas it was in consequence of the earnest and often-repeated recom- 
mendation of the State and National Teachers' Associations, and especially 
as the action taken at the session of the Association of School-Superintend- 
ents, held February 6, 1866, in the city of Washington, that Congress finally 
established the Department of Education ; and whereas the more recent ac- 
tion of the Senate and House of Representatives seems to indicate a want of 
confidence in such a department as a useful agency in the promotion of edu- 
cation: Therefore, 

Be it resolved, That this association appoint a committee of three to act in 
conjunction with a like committee of the National Teachers' Association, 
with instructions to confer with the authorities at Washington in regard to 
the best interests of the National Bureau, or Office, of Education. 

Resolved, That the joint committee appointed as above be instructed to 
represent to Congress that it is the unanimous opinion of the members of 
this association that such a Department, at the seat of the General Govern- 
ment, clothed with all the powers and having all the facilities contemplated 
in the law by which it was originally established, would be of almost incal- 
culable utility in collecting and disseminating information for the use of the 
great multitude of school-officers of every rank, who are now or who may 
hereafter be concerned in the organization and management of schools and 
school-systems in scores of States and thousands of cities and towns through- 
out the length and breadth of a territory which already covers almost a con- 
tinent. 

Resolved, That the said committee be further instructed to urge upon Con- 
gress that the causes which have impaired the present usefulness of said 
Department — whatsoever they may be — be not permitted to weigh against 
the continuance and liberal support of the Department itself. 

The "liberal support" thus asked for was not given, and on 
the 17th of March, 1870, Dr. Barnard retired and was succeeded 
by the present Commissioner. He found the Office shorn of hon- 
ors and emoluments, the original Department having been re- 
duced to a Bureau, the salary of Commissioner cut down from 
$4,000 to $3,000, and the appropriation for the work from $20,000 
to $6,000, while only two clerks, at $1,200 each, were employed in 
collecting from all quarters of the world the information upon 
school-matters to be circulated throughout all our country. 
This exceedingly inadequate force he has, with the cordial aid of 
the President, of the Secretary of the Interior, and of Congress, 
succeeded in increasing to something nearer an approximation to 
the work to be performed, though it remains still greatly short 
of what the wide range of the duties of the Bureau calls for. 



II. — AS TO ITS WOUK. 

The operations of the Bureau are prescribed and indicated 
by the act of March 2, 1867, to which it owes its being. That 
act says it shall be established ^' for the purpose of collecting 
such statistics and facts as shall show the condition and prog- 
ress of education in the several States and Territories, and of 
diffusing such information respecting the organization and man- 
agement of school-systems and methods of teacliing as shall 
aid the people of the United States in the establishment and 
maintenance of efficient school-systems, and otherwise promote 
the cause of education." 

The collection of information as to the condition and progress 
of education in the ivhole United States is the first branch of the 
work thus outlined. The field for exploration it presents em- 
braces the thirty-seven States and eleven Territories. To make 
the exploration thorough, theBureau mustexamiue ever\^ school- 
law, and mark whatever change or amendment may be made, 
including the charters of city-boards of education, with their 
rules and ordinances. It must sift, for things deserving general 
attention, the reports of every State-, county-, and city super- 
intendent of the public schools that may be sent to it. It must 
get at the work not only of the public high schools, but also 
of the private academies and special preparatory schools. It 
must look through the annual catalogues and calendars of a 
long list of colleges and universities ; schools of divinity, law, 
medicine, and science; reformatories, and institutions for the 
training of the deaf and dumb, the blind, and the feeble- 
minded — selecting from each what is worthy to be noted in the 
way of either improvement or defect. And besides all this, it 
must keep its eyes wide open to observe the growth of libraries, 
museums, schools of art or industry, and other aids to the proper 
training of the people j must see what the educational journals 
say as to school-matters in their several States ; must note what 
may be worth preserving in the utterances at teachers' asso- 
ciations and gatherings of scientific men ; and must keep up, 
with reference to all these things, an incessant correspondence 
with every portion of the country. In fact, its correspondence 
reaches, more or less directly, to the 48 States and Territories, 
to 206 cities, 132 normal schools,* 144 business-colleges, 54 
Kindergarten, 1,455 academies, 103 schools especiallj^ engaged 
in preparing pupils for the colleges, 240 institutions for the 
* Some of these, normal departments in colleijes and other schools. 



6 

higher training of young women, 383 colleges and universities, 
73 schools of science, 115 of theology, 37 of law, and 98 of med- 
icine 'y with 585 libraries, 28 art-museums, 53 museums of nat- 
ural history, 40 institutions for the instruction of deaf mutes, 
28 for the blind, 9 for the feeble-minded, 400 for orphans, and 
45 for the reformation of misguided youth. The list of insti- 
tutions in correspondence with the Bureau, already over 4,000, 
is steadily increasing, and must increase, w^ith the growth of 
population and of schools, to fully 5,000, while that of individ- 
ual correspondents, now much over 8,000, must soon reach a 
far greater number. The returns thus made to it, of perfectly 
free will, on education, exceed considerably what were gathered 
for the census of 1870 by an army of house- visitant officials, 
armed with authority for requiring answers to their questions. 

The ^'- diffusion^'' of the information thus collected, to '^ aid the peo- 
ple in the establishment and maintenance of efficient school-systems 
and otherwise promote the cause of education,^'' is the second 
branch of the w^ork to be performed. The language of the 
law, however, here, " such information as shall aid," widens 
the field of research considerably ; sends the Bureau to the 
study of school-systems elsewhere prevalent; and induces 
inquiry as to the ministries of instruction in the several 
European states, as to the useful suggestions in foreign educa- 
tional reports and journals, and as to the systems of training 
in the universities, gymnasia, real-schools, schools of archi- 
tecture and drawing, and the various institutions for primary 
education in every civilized community or state, that whatever 
is peculiar or excellent in each may be collected, with a view to 
the assistance of our educators in their work. 

All this, with the educational collections from our country, 
is presented by the Bureau : (1) In the form of annual Eeports, 
each giving abstracts of the various classes of instruction, 
(such as primary, secondary, superior, professional and special,) 
with lists and statistics of all noticeable institutions and esti- 
mates of progress or retreat in various lines; (2) in occasional Cir- 
culars of Information, of which twenty have been published up 
to 1875, besides others of a closely kindred character, not so 
designated ; and (3) in written answers to inquiries on school- 
matters addressed to the Commissioner, from a great variety 
of sources, both in this country and abroad. 

The amount of intelligence conve3^ed hj these means with 
respect to educational systems, school-laws, and important in- 



stitutions, is such, as has never previously been made generally 
accessible in the United States; such as no agency belonging 
merely to a single State could possiV>ly have gathered and 
such as private persons could not have obtained, without vast 
labor and a great expense, except through publications thus 
brought freely within reach.* 

How highly the iutelligence tl/us spread abroad is valued, 
and how much it has aided in harmonizing the school-systeLus 
of the States and improving in new districts the methods of 
instruction, might be shown by strong testimonies from very 
many of our educators. The Bureau cannot violate the sanc- 
tity of correspondence by printing the kind words written to it 
by free pens, bat lets this brief report respecting it be made to 
show what is the work laid on it, and what, with comparatively 
scanty means, has been the measure of success secured in this 
through the friendly co-operation of school-officers. 

The limitations imposed upon the Bureau with reference to its 
ic '■:-'': deserve some notice in a paper of this kind. It is very 
evident, from the language of the act creating it, that it was 
not to be left to do what work it pleased. The field in which it 
is to operate is, in that act, distinctly marked for it, and the 
kind of work to be done by it within that field is told in words 
that no one need mistake. To repeat, it is established " for 
the purpose of collecting such statistics and facts as shall show 
the condition and progress of education in the several States 
and Territories, and of diffusing such information * * * 
as shall aid the people of the United States in the establish- 
ment and maintenance of efficient school-systems, and other- 
wise promote the cause of education.'' 

It may be noted here that no power whatever is given the 
Bureau but that of gathering and disseminating information 
upon school-affairs; no lordship over school-officials is conferred ; 
no authority over the school-systems of the States is hinted at; 
no warrant for coercing even an answer to the questions it may 
ask in its researches is sought or bestow^ed. The liberty of re- 
search and of publication is declared with authoritative voice, 
and nothing more. A governmental agency for getting at the 
facts of education, and so grouping these that all may have the 
benefit of the instruction they convey, the Bureau stands be- 
fore the various school-officers to interrogate, but not to rule 
them. It has to depend upon their courtesy for a reply to its 

A list of these publications may be found in Appendix A. 



8 

interrogations, and would be helpless if that courtesy should 
fail. It is simply a ^' clearing-house for educational informa- 
tion." 

Not even in the Territories, where the legislative power of 
Congress is supreme, has any authority been given to the Bu- 
reau to direct what educational systems shall prevail. They 
are included with the States in the limitation of its duties 
above indicated, and to them, as to the States, a hand of help, 
and not of rule, is all that it is authorized by Congress to extend. 
It may gather information from them as to the progress 
and condition of education in their bounds ; may distribute 
among them, for their benefit, such other information as it has 
from the various sources in its sphere of view j and may com- 
ment, if it should please, on the information it conveys, to show 
its value or its bearing j but there, alike with Territories and 
with States, its power ends. It cannot force on them its con- 
clusions ; cannot require that its suggestions shall be carried 
out 5 cannot demand that any defect which it may see in their 
systems of instruction be amended. Conveyance of intelligence 
fitted to amend defects is the extent of fche authority accorded 
to it even with reference to education in the Territories. 

That this view is correct is evident from several things con- 
nected with the first origiuation of the Bureau, as well as its 
entire administration. 

(1) The spirit of the National Educational Association, from 
which the action for establishing it emanated, has been from 
the first opposed to national control of education, and in favor 
only of a moderate national " aid and comfort " for it. The 
whole drift of the action it has taken on this point has been for 
a perfectly free working of State-systems and against a national 
compulsory one. The very paper of Mr. White, which formed 
the basis of the memorial to Congress for the creation of the Bu- 
reau, took up the question of the starting of a system of edu- 
cation by the General Government, and pronounced against it 
as " too wide a departure from the settled educational policy of 
the country to be seriously entertained.^' At a succeeding meet- 
ing the same year, at Indianapolis, Hon. Oramel Horsford, State- 
superintendent of public instruction in Michigan, read, with 
apparently general approval, a paper on " National education," 
of kindred purport.* At the meeting in Trenton, in 1869, in 

* The same view was enunciated and illustrated by the present Commis- 
sioner, in an address before the association, at Cleveland, in the summer of 

1870. 



9 

which, as has been shown, the Bureau was heartily indorsed, a 
communication from ai3rominent clerical gentleman of Massa- 
chusetts, favoring '^ A national system of free schools," "met" — 
says an educational journal of that period — '^ but little favor." 
To make its position on the subject perfectly distinct, the asso- 
ciation appended to its resolutions approbatory of the Bureau 
the following one : 

Besolved, That, in petitioning Congress for the creation of a Department of 
Education, in connection with the General Government, this association 
contemplates neither the establishment of a national system of education 
nor any interference whatsoever with the systems of education established 
in the several States. 

At the meeting at Saint Louis, August, 1871, when a scheme 
for establishing, by congressional enactment, systems of public 
schools in States where they were not existent was being agi- 
tated, the final seal was put upon this matter, as far as the asso- 
ciation was concerned, by a paper from Hon. J. P. Wicker- 
sham, of Pennsylvania, a warm friend of the Bureau, in which 
a national compulsory system was argued against upon the 
grounds : [a) that "the establishment of such a system is in op- 
position to the uniform practice of our National Government 5" 
{!)) that "it is in opposition to the wishes of the founders of the 
Republic and the leading statesmen of the nation f (c) that " it 
is of doubtful constitutionality," and {d) that " it is in opposi- 
tion to a sound republican political philosophy." 

This apparentl}^ uniform spirit of the body out of whose desire 
for it the Bureau sprung is accepted as one decisive indication 
of the limitation intended to be put upon its action. 

(2) The expressions of the memorial which urged on Congress 
the formation of the Bureau afford a kindred indication of the 
limited powers which the memorialists desired that it should be 
authorized to exercise. Having stated the benefits to be hoped 
for from its establishment, the paper goes on thus : " The high- 
est value of the Bureau would be its quickening and informing 
influence, rather than its authoritative and directive control." 
And again : " The true function of such a Bureau is not to 
direct officially in the school-affairs in States, but rather to co- 
operate with and assist them in the great work of establishing 
and maintaining systems of public instruction." 

(3) Concurrent with these recorded ideas of the memorialists 
are those expressed in Congress by prominent men in favor of 
the Bureau, at the time of the debates on the question of creat- 
ing it. 



10 

For example, General Garfield, of the House, by whom the 
hill for it was introduced, said, while strenuously urging the 
importance of a general training of the people : "• The genius 
of our Government does not allow us to establish a compulsory 
system of education, as is done in some of the countries of Eu- 
rope. There are States in this Union which have adopted a com - 
pulsory system, and perhaps that is well. It is for each State to 
determine." Mr. Bout well, then also in the House, remarked, 
in kindred strain : ^' This measure is no invasion of State-rights. 
It does not seek to control anybody. It does not interfere with 
the system of education anywhere. It only proposes to furnish 
the means by which, from a Bureau here, every citizen of every 
State in this Eepublic can be informed as to the means of edu- 
cation existing and applied in the most advanced sections of 
this country and the world." 

In the Senate, Mr. Norton said he would not vote for it if it 
was to control education in the States 5 but, on the understand- 
ing that its office was simply to collect and disseminate infor- 
mation, informing one State of the manner of conducting 
schools and the school-systems to be found in another, he ap- 
proved of it and believed it would be beneficial to tbe country. 
Mr. Trumbull, in the same honorable body, answering the 
objection that this was a scheme to take the control of educa- 
tion from the States and give it to the central Government, said 
" it was not so by any means. It was merely to establish a 
center for the dissemination of information among the States as 
to improvements in building school-houses, in methods of im- 
parting instruction, and so on, and for giving a history of the 
disposition of the vast amount of property which the nation has 
donated for purposes of education." 

These several indications of the bounds within which it must 
confine itself are taken by the Bureau, with the law which gave 
it birtb, as demonstrating what must be its sphere of action. 
It is to be an aid to instruction in the States, and not a lord- 
ship over it. Information, not direction, is the line of work 
assigned to it. It may courteously question State-officers and 
teachers, but may not undertake to rule them. Content with 
this and not disposed to go a step beyond, it not only can dis- 
claim all thought of intermeddling with State-systems, but also 
fearlessly appeal to the several school-officers with whom its 
duties bring it into contact, whether it ever trespasses upon 
their fields or threatens in the least to turn into a tyranny what 
was meant to be an aid to them. But, happily, there is no need 



11 

for such appeal. The pleasantest relations coDstantly subsist 
between it and the educational authorities in all the States. It 
is in receipt of frequent and most gratifying evidence of their 
cordially kind feeling and readiness to co-operate with it in its 
work. In proof of this, citation may be made from freely -pub- 
lished testimonies, without touching private correspondence. 

For instance, at the session of the National Educational Asso- 
ciation held in Boston, August, 1872, the assembled educators 
passed a resolution congratulating themselves and the country 
that the National Bureau of Education was beginning to meet 
the wants of teachers by pursuing investigations which increased 
thevalue of educational statistics and bypublishingoccasionally, 
for the benefit of the educators of the country, the rare products 
of the educational field in this and other regions. They also 
respectfully recommended that facilities for the i>ublicatiOn of 
its Circulars of Information be increased and that Congress 
should provide for a larger edition of the annual Report, to be 
distributed among teachers and school -officers, that they might 
have each year in the conduct of their work the advantage of 
its aggregated information drawn from the previous year's ex- 
perience. 

At the session of the department of superintendence of the 
same association, held in Washington January, 1874, the fol- 
lowing resolutions, presented by Messrs. Eufifner of Ya., Bick- 
nell of E. I., Hopkins of Ind., Newell of Md., and Jillson of 
S. C, the committee on aid to education, passed with apparent- 
ly unanimous approval : 

Eesolved, That this convention strongly approves the policy liitlierto pur- 
sued by the Federal Government of leaving the people and local government 
of each State to manage their own educational affairs without interference, 
"believing that the principle on which this policy is based is as sound educa- 
tionally as it is politically. 

r"* Eesolved, That this convention acknowledges the great service done to the 
cause of education by Congress in establishing and maintaining a Depart- 
ment of Education, similar in principle to those of Agriculture and Statistics, 
whereby appropriate information from all parts of the world maybe gathered, 
digested, and distributed, and whereby a number of important ends may be 
subserved in connection with the work of education. It would also acknowl- 
edge the very valuable service already done by the Bureau of Education, 
and would venture to express the hope that its means of usefulness may be 
increased. \ 

The State Teachers' Association of Missouri, too, at its annual 

meeting, held in Warrensburg, December, 1873, adopted this 

resolution : 

Eesolved, That we recognize the great value of the work of the United 
States Commissioner of Education, and respectfully ask our legislators and 
Rei^resentatives in* Congress to render the Bureau of Education every possible 
facility for collecting and distributing the important facts and statistics 
embraced in the circulars and annual Report of the Commissioner. 



12 

Hon. W. H. Euffner, State-superintendent of instruction in 

Virginia, and offerer of the Washington resolutions quoted, 

makes this further voluntary statement in his report for 1873 : 

Those who have to deal practically with this matter of State-education, 
know what need there is of some central depot of information, where edu- 
cational facts from all parts of the world may be gathered, digested, and dis- 
tributed over the country, as is done by the present Bureau of Education. 
This is a work too large and costly for any State-office, and yet is important 
to all. This Bureau is intended to occupy a position on educational matters 
similar to that occupied in their respective spheres by the Bureaus of Agri- 
culture and of Statistics, and should never be allowed to go beyond this. 

And finally, Hon. H. A. M. Henderson, State-superintendent 
of education in Kentucky^ speaks thus in his report for 1874 : 

I am opposed to any national scheme for popular education, or the cre- 
ation of any United States Bureau, or Commissioner, who shall be in- 
vested with any authority over the superintendents of the separate States. 
* * * I am not opposed to a Commissioner of Education, to be 

located at Washington, as at present, whose relations to the subject of pop- 
ular education shall be those of a general statistician. The annual report 
he sends out is worth the cost of the Bureau. It has always afforded me 
pleasure to co-operate with him in his quest for information, and I have 
received valuable aid through the agency of his Office, * 

It is hoped that these showings of the limitations put upon 
the work of the Bureau and of the confidence reposed in it by 
State-teachers and State-officers, as administered in strict com- 
pliance with these limitations, may help to correct misconcep- 
tions, not infrequently apparent, as to possible interference with 
the independence of State-systems ot instruction ; for any one 
may see that such interference is impossible from an agency 
whose business is just to gather from all quarters educational 
hints, information, and statistics, and spread these, for the gen- 
eral benefit, by its publications and its correspondence through 
the country. And that this, and no more, is the duty that is 
laid on it is indicated clearly, not only by the act which gave 
it its existence, but also, as has been shown, by the spirit of 
the great association that suggested it, by the terms of the me- 

* While this pamphlet is passing through the press, the following addi- 
tional testimonials of the appreciation of the Bureau among educators come 
to hand: (1) That the Massachusetts State Teachers' Association, atits meet- 
ing in Boston, December 28-30, 1874, passed, unanimously " a resolution to 
memorialize Congress in favor of the continuance and liberal support of the 
National Bureau of Education ; " (2) that the New York State Association 
of School-Commissioners and Superintendents adopted at its session, Decem- 
ber 20, the following : 

Resolved, That we "have noticed ■vvitli deep regret the apparent want ef appreciation, on 
the part of a large number of Kepresentatives, of the Bureau of Education at Wasliington, 
the great value of which we have learned by our individual experience, not as building up 
a central power in education at the national Capital, which it appears to us inadequate 
ever to do, but as enabling those engaged in education in the various States to have ac- 
cess to the information necessary to make their work thorough and efficient. 



13 

morial which led to the formation of it, and by the expressions 
in the congressional debate oq that formation. 

That the Bureau does, besides this, from its being a known 
organ of the Government, an incidental duty, not included in 
its special aim, by furnishing to foreign governments and indi- 
viduals much-needed information as to our school -systems and 
school-methods, no one will complain of who desires good- 
neighborhood among the nations.* Our country is honored by 
being applied to for such information, and the pride of our peo- 
ple in the educational status they have reached would be am- 
ply gratified if the Bureau could spread out before them the 
returns of approval from its many foreign correspondents. 

Of the value of such a means of international communica- 
tion as the Bureau is, an illustration was afforded in the case of 
the Exposition at Vienna, in 1873. In i)revious world's fairs the 
condition of the United States with regard to education had been 
scarcely touched, from want of any agency to organize the ma- 
terial for exhibition. But at Vienna, through the facilities which 
this Office was able to furnish from its national position, the 
educational instrnmentalities of the country — public- school- sys- 
tems, institutions of learning, libraries, and others — were enabled 
to represent their statistics, methods, apparatus, and literature, 
so as to secure si)ecial recognition, and carried off forty-eight 
premiums. Of the four grand diplomas of honor given the 
United States in the educational gronp, one was bestowed on 
this Bureau "for distinguished services in the cause of education 
and for important contributions to the Exposition." 

THE LIBRARY OF THE BUREAU. 

Full justice could not be done to the Bureau without some 
notice of this department of its work. As one of the fruits of 
its researches into educational facts and statistics, a library of 
almost unexampled richness in its special line has gradually 
grown up beneath its hands. This is, in part, composed of 

* In the debate upon the organizing act, in 1867, Senator Yates gave as 
one reason for voting to create the Bureau, that it -would meet a want in this 
direction, a foreign friend of education having complained to him of the dif- 
ficulty he experienced in finding any central source of information on such 
points. He could gather up reports from different States, but any connected 
view of education in the whole United States was not accessible. In fact, as 
was said by Hon. G. F. Hoar, upon the floor of Congress, the only respect- 
able accounts of education in this country then published had been prepared 
by foreign governments. 



14 

choice collections bearing on the history and art of education 
in this country and abroad j in part, of the accumulatious made 
in the process of annual examination into the condition of pub- 
lic-schooMnstruction, the state of academies and colleges, and 
the rise and work of professional and special schools. 

For one element of it, there come in, each year, the educa- 
tional journals of the country, the reports on education from 
our various States and Territories — -including not only those of 
State-superintendents of instruction, but also those of the 
superintendents in the counties — and those of the cities and 
large towns. To these are added the annual reports of high 
schools, union-schools, preparatory schools, and normal schools ; 
of young ladies' seminaries, business-colleges, agricultural col- 
leges, classical and scientific colleges and universities, with the 
schools of science, law, medicine, and theology standing con- 
nected with these, or apart ; while to close the list come schools 
for orphans, for deaf mutes, for the blind, for youth that need 
to be reformed as well as taught, for the instruction of a force 
of well-trained nurses, of apprentices for our marine, and of 
officers for the Army and l!^avy of our Government. Collections 
of school-laws go to fill up the list and aid in the investigation 
of systems of instruction ; while prominent publishers of edu- 
cational works send in their specimens to show what improve- 
ments in the means of teaching are continually going forward. 

All these collections are, as fast as time and means permit, 
so bound, classified, and properly arranged as to be imme- 
diately available for any line of educational research to be at- 
tempted, whether it refer to the forms of State- and city-systems 
of instruction or to the condition of academic, collegiate, pro- 
fessional, or special training in any recent period or year. 

For another element there are full sets of reports on educa- 
tion from Great Britain and Ireland, Germany, France, Aus- 
tria, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Sweden and Nor- 
way, the British Colonies, Brazil, and the Argentine Eepublic, 
while pretty full, though not complete, ones are on hand from 
Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Eussia, Egypt, 
Chili, Mexico, Ecuador, and the United States of Colombia. 

Both these two elements come in with little other expense to 
the Bureau than the exchange of its own publications with the 
governments, officers, institutions, and publishing-houses from 
which they are received. 

Then, as a third element, there are, besides encyclopedias for 



15 

reference, as large collectioDS as small funds will admit of works 
relating, in a variety of ways, to the education and civilization 
of the world, the progress of knowledge, the development of 
art, and the condition of literature and science. 

Works bearing directly on education as a science or an art 
form a fourth element. Among these may be enumerated: 
(1) Works of all the prominent German writers on these themes, 
such as Comenius, Basedow, Pestalozzi, Niemeier, Beneke, 
Benzel, Graser, Schleiermacher, Herbart, Diesterweg, &c. ; (2) 
all the important works on the history of education in Europe, 
as well as in the United States ; (3) a large number of German, 
French, and English treatises on educational questions; (4) the 
chief German, British, Austrian, French, Swiss, and Italian 
educational periodicals ; (5) the many works on special topics 
in the line of education that have grown out of the controver- 
sies, the needs, and the desire for information of the last few 
years in our own country and abroad. 

Those who have had opportunities for comparison of this 
with kindred libraries abroad do not hesitate to say that, great 
as are the means for such collections under the monarchies of 
Europe, this of the Bureau of Education is, for the ground it 
covers and for purposes of practical investigation, superior to 
any in existence, except, perhaps, one at Vienna. And of 
course, as its accumulations are continually going forward and 
its materials more and more systematized for work, its value as 
a librarv of reference increases with each added vear. 



APPENDIX A. 

PUBLICATIO^'S OF THE BUREAU OF EDUCATION. 

Under Dr. Barnard. 

* Report for 1867-'68. 

^' Special Report on the District of Columbia. 

Under present administration. 

* First Annual Report, 1870.t 

* Second Annual Report, 1871.t 
'^ Third Annual Report, 1872.t 

* Fourth Annual Report, 1873.± 

*August, 1870. Circular respecting illiteracy of 1860; school-room diseases, 



16 

* July, 1871. Report on the systems of public instruction in Sweden and 

Norway. 
November, 1871. Methods of school-discipline. 
December, 1871. Compulsory education. 
January, 1872. German and other foreign universities. 

* February, 1872. Reports on the systems of public instruction in Greece, the 

Argentine RexDublic, Chili, and Ecuador, with statistics 
of Portugal and Japan and an official report on technical 
education in Italy. 
March, 1872. 1. An inquiry concierniug the vital statistics of college 

graduates. 

2. Distribution of college students in 1870-'71. 

3. Facts of vital statistics in the United States, with tables 
and diagrams. 

April, 1872. The relation of education to labor. 

June, 1872. Education in the British West Indies. 

July, 1872. The Kindergarten. 

November, 1872. American education at the International Exposition to be 
held at Vienna in 1873. 
* 1872. Free-school policy in connection with leading western rail- 
ways. 
No. 1, 1873. Historical summary and reports on the systems of public 

instruction in Spajn, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Portugal. 
No. 2, 1873. Schools in British India. 

*No. 3, 1873. Accountof college-commencements, for the summer of 1873, 
in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, 
Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and 
Pennsylvania. 
No. 4, 1873. Lists of publications by members of certain college- facul- 

ties and learned societies in the United States. 
No. 5, 1873. Account of college-commencements during 1873 in the 

Western and Southern States. 
No. 1, 1874. Proceedings of the department of superintendence of the 

National Teachers' Association. 
No. 2, 1874. Drawing in public schools : the present relation of art to 

education in the United States. 
No. 3, 1874. History of secondary instruction in Germany. 

1874. Contributions to the annals of medical progress and medi- 
cal education in the United States before and during the 
War of Independence. 
1874. A statement of the theory of education in the United States 
of America, as approved by many leading educators. 

• — ■ — \ 

* Bureau's supply exhausted. 

tOf each of these, 20,000 copies were ordered by Congress and 5,000 put at the disposal 
of the Bureau. 

J As to this, the congressional action was: The House had voted for 20,000 copies of 
this Report, and when the Senate, on economical grounds, made it 5.000, the House, adher- 
ing to its first vote, called for a committee of conference, and only yielded after much effort 
to secure the larger number. The following is the resolution finally adopted : " Resolved, 
That there be printed, of the Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1873, 5,000 
copies, of which 2,500 copies shall be for^ the use of the Commisaiouer and 2,500 shall be 
for sale by the Congressional Printer at the cost of paper and press-work, with an addi- 
tion of 10 per cent." This makes the price to purchasers only 68 cents for a volume of 
1,048 pages, the postage on which is, under the new law, but 10 cents. 






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